Autism proposals unveiled

A Conservative MP's bill to impose a legal responsibility on councils and healthcare services to care for people with autism has won the vote to stop it being "talked out" in parliament.

Chesham and Amersham MP Cheryl Gillan's bill won by 131 votes to 25. Former Tory minister Angela Browning, vice president of the National Autistic Society, said that although the government had "good intentions" they had not made good on their promise to hold a study into how widely spread the condition is. "This has to be enshrined in regulation and statute that will work," she said.